Git History Timeline

Visualize your complete GitHub contribution history. Every commit, every branch, every repository.

View Demo • Try Widget

Why

GitHub's profile shows contributions from default branches only. This shows everything.

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/kibotu/git-history-timeline.git
cd git-history-timeline
npm install
echo "GITHUB_TOKEN=ghp_your_token_here" > .env
./run.sh

Get your token at github.com/settings/tokens/new (needs repo and read:user scopes).

Screenshots

Light Mode	Dark Mode

What You Get

Static Timeline (dist/index.html)

Full contribution history with theme toggle and stats.

Animated Widget (dist/widget.html)

High-velocity animation through 16 years in 30 seconds.

<iframe 
  src="widget.html?duration=30&theme=dark"
  width="100%"
  height="300"
  frameborder="0">
</iframe>

Widget parameters:

• duration=30 — Animation duration in seconds
• theme=dark — Color theme (dark or light)
• autoplay=true — Start automatically
• speed=1.0 — Playback speed (0.1-10x)

Generate with: npm run widget

Features

• All branches, not just main/master
• Private repositories you own or collaborate on
• Contributions to open source projects
• Historical data going back years
• Self-contained HTML (share or embed anywhere)
• Animated widget with rolling 365-day window
• Dark and light themes
• Fully responsive (mobile to desktop)

Options

./run.sh --user octocat              # Different user
./run.sh --repos owned               # Only repos you own
./run.sh --repos forks               # Only forked repos
./run.sh --repos contributions       # Only external contributions
./run.sh --cached                    # Use cached data
./run.sh --refresh                   # Force full refresh
./run.sh --no-open                   # Don't open browser

Embedding

Static Timeline

<iframe 
  src="https://yoursite.com/index-embed.html?theme=dark"
  width="100%" 
  height="800" 
  frameborder="0">
</iframe>

Animated Widget

<iframe 
  src="https://yoursite.com/widget.html?duration=30&theme=dark"
  width="100%"
  height="300"
  frameborder="0">
</iframe>

Both support ?theme=dark or ?theme=light.

How It Works

1. Fetches all your repositories via GitHub API
2. Iterates through every branch in every repository
3. Collects commit history with author matching
4. Aggregates by date and calculates contribution levels
5. Generates self-contained HTML with embedded data
6. Caches results for faster subsequent runs

First run takes ~5 minutes for large accounts. Subsequent runs take ~30 seconds (incremental updates only).

Technical Details

• Node.js 18+ required
• GitHub API for data fetching
• Zero dependencies for generated HTML
• Incremental caching for performance
• Rate limit handling with automatic retries
• Parallel processing for multiple repositories
• 60fps animation using requestAnimationFrame
• Responsive design with 6 breakpoints

Widget Specs

• 16 years of history in one animation
• 5,844 days of commit data
• 257KB self-contained file
• 60 FPS smooth animation
• 52×7 grid showing 365-day rolling window
• GitHub-style contribution colors

Project Structure

dist/                       # Generated files (git-ignored)
├── index.html              # Full page with theme toggle
├── index-embed.html        # Embeddable version
├── widget.html             # Animated widget (257KB)
└── widget-data.json        # Widget data

templates/                  # Build templates
└── widget.html.template    # Widget HTML template

examples/                   # Demo and test files
├── widget-demo.html        # Widget showcase
└── widget-embed-test.html  # Embedding tests

docs/                       # GitHub Pages
└── theme-demo.html         # Theme configuration demo

Caching

Cache stored in .cache/commits.json. Delete to force full refresh or use --refresh flag.

./run.sh          # First run: ~5 min
./run.sh          # Second run: ~30 sec (incremental)
./run.sh --cached # Use cache, skip API calls
./run.sh --refresh # Force full refresh

Repository Filters

Filter	Description
all	Everything (default)
owned	Repos you own, excluding forks
forks	Only forked repositories
contributions	Only commits to repos you don't own

Troubleshooting

No commits found:

• Check token has repo and read:user scopes
• Verify token isn't expired
• Check rate limits: github.com/settings/tokens

Rate limit exceeded:

• Wait an hour or use --cached to work with existing data
• Authenticated requests get 5,000/hour vs 60/hour unauthenticated

Widget not animating:

• Check browser console for errors
• Verify browser supports ES6+ (Chrome 90+, Firefox 88+, Safari 14+)
• Try ?autoplay=false to debug

License

MIT

Credits

Built by @kibotu

Inspired by GitHub's contribution graph but showing the complete picture.